


In The Fire, I Found My Heart

by chocolatecatcupcakecheese



Series: KakaObi Week 2019 (c4) [8]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, KakaObi Week 2019, M/M, Team Minato-centric, Team as Family, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Uchiha Obito-centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-25 10:09:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17723174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chocolatecatcupcakecheese/pseuds/chocolatecatcupcakecheese
Summary: Obito wakes up after he dies fighting Zetsu and Kaguya, ostensibly years in the past.Even if it's just the Infinite Tsukuyomi, Obito decides he's going to fix everything.He soon finds things aren't as simple as he first thought.For KakaObi WeekDay 8:Time Travel|Fate





	In The Fire, I Found My Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome to my time travel fix-it fic! I love the trope beyond hope or reason, so I'm trying my hand at creating one of my own!
> 
> I was halfheartedly click-clacking away at this before I found out about KakaObi Week, but as soon as I saw the Time Travel prompt in the challenge list, I knew I had to do this. It's **fate** , haha.
> 
> Because this brainchild of mine is so ~~intrusive~~ well-loved, it already has a [ playlist ](https://open.spotify.com/user/chocolatecatcupcakecheese/playlist/1MnIxX1WeCS5hl1SiD4heD?si=dcTLsTGKQF6nSHxxJFJmQQ) and a [ pinterest aesthetic/moodboard ](https://www.pinterest.com/chocolatecatcupcakecheese/in-the-fire-i-found-my-heart/). 
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

Obito wakes.

He’s up and moving, scrambling out of his bonds— bedsheets— He trips and falls, his balance shot to hell, reaches fruitlessly for a weapon and flares his chakra, sensing for enemies. The nearest signatures are several hundred feet to the north. He notes his surroundings with disbelief and flares his chakra again, this time to dispel genjutsu.

Nothing changes. No enemies appear to apprehend him as he scrambles through the room to find a kunai. He counts his breaths, calming his racing heart. The warm, humid air feels as real against his sweaty skin as anything.

He’s… alive?

This is particularly surprising, since last he knew, he was dead. He stays where he is, stunned, for several minutes, observing his surroundings, mind whirling with possibilities.

He was dead. Dead! Or, well. _Dying._ Now he is awake, breathing without pain, seemingly alone in a place which oddly resembles his childhood bedroom in the Uchiha compound.

He snaps his chakra again, trying to break the genjutsu. Nothing changes. He activates his Mangekyo, and tries again to break whatever illusion has him in his grip. Nothing changes, except the appearance of the throbbing pain in his temples which comes of overusing his dojutsu.

He groans and leans heavily against the cluttered bedside table. His chakra reserves are worryingly low.

When he wanders into the bathroom and catches his reflection in the mirror he nearly breaks it on reflex. Obito flares his chakra again. This has to be an illusion! He looks, what, ten years old? Twelve? He looks like a fucking _child._

His surroundings don’t so much as waver under the snap of his chakra. He studies his young reflection warily.

Edo Tensei can’t restore a person’s remains to a younger age beyond a certain point, and it leaves telltale visual traces of the caster’s control. He spies no cracks in his skin and his sclera are the natural white. But all signs point to this not being a genjutsu, either. Unless.

Is this the Infinite Tsukuyomi?

It’s the only possibility he can think of, the only thing that might cause an illusion so thorough. But wasn’t it defeated?

_‘Whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth,’_ was it?

“This is fucking bullshit,” he snarls. “Did I seriously die for nothing?”

He splashes his face with water, dresses and arms himself in record time, and heads outside for some reconnaissance.

 

* * *

 

Obito very quickly realizes that, whatever body his soul has been shoved into, the chakra reserves are so low that he can’t even keep the Sharingan active constantly, let alone his Mangekyo. His center of balance is skewed, and his reflexes are worryingly slow, to the point that he struggles at simply tossing and catching a kunai.

What the actual hell? What kind of dumb-ass, half-cocked, useless jutsu is this? He has next to none of his previous skill! Why would someone bring him back like this?

Obito doesn’t make it very far before one of his many _long-dead clan members_ catches him snooping and grabs him by the scruff of his neck. Obito twists in the woman’s grip and kicks at her throat on reflex, misses wildly, then freezes in shock at the sight of her face. He last saw it more than a decade ago, at the end of his blade that night with Itachi.

“Obito-kun,” Sazae-san chides him. “You should be at the training ground with your team already.”

He studies her kindly, wrinkled face as he dangles limp in her grip like a misbehaving kitten. “I’m sorry,” he replies. There is no trace of blood or decay this close to her. No sign left of her death at his hands. Her sclera aren’t grey, ruling out Edo Tensei. And no one would bother resurrecting a no-name Uchiha clanswoman without the Sharingan, anyway!

What is _happening?_

She studies him in return. “Are you feeling alright, Obito-kun? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.” She sets him back on the ground and brushes her hands across the fabric of his shoulders, smoothing out his shirt.

He barely restrains a flinch at the casual contact and nods mutely. “I am fine,” he replies at length, when she is finished _touching_ him. “I slept late and had a nightmare.”

She clucks and takes his hand. He stares at the foreign appendage and fights the _perfectly rational_ urge to rip his hand away and run and hide. That would be _suspicious,_ though, and would alert her and possibly others to the… abnormality of his presence here.

He lets her walk him as far as the edge of the compound. As soon as she is out of sight, he heads out to explore the village.

 

* * *

 

Obito is absolutely seething. It's been an hour of searching for any anachronism. He's found _none._ Everything seems perfectly like the Konoha of his youth. There are far too many details for a simple genjutsu, to the point where he spies details he’d forgotten in the intervening decades.

Eiko-obaasan’s shop and its fantastically ugly noren, hand-embroidered by her daughter. The demonic looking maneki-neko in the doorway of the weapons shop two streets down from the Uchiha Clan district, long since smashed. The scent of hot rice emanating from the dango stand en route to the training ground. The off-key enka singing of Fujita-san as he carted his vegetables to the market.

The way almost everyone saw him and smiled, calling out cheerful greetings.

Obito’s heart aches with the nostalgia of everything he sees. He ruthlessly pushes it down, taking deep breaths and separating himself from his feelings. He can break down once he’s figured out what is happening.

Obito reaches the training ground they used to train at and stops dead.

The sight that greets him is heart-wrenchingly familiar. Rin, painfully young, is leaned against a tree, wrapping her knuckles in bandages and chattering at Kakashi, who is ignoring her with the ease of long practice as he watches Minato tracing seals onto a scroll spread across the ground.

Obito _can’t_. He can’t face this, knowing what he’s done, knowing the part he played in breaking them all apart.

He doesn’t deserve this.

He activates his Mangekyo, regardless of the fact that his body can’t handle it. He thinks he sees Kakashi turn to look at his location, but Obito is already gone, slipping through dimensions and into his own private haven of blank nothingness.

He collapses on the floor, dizzy from the expenditure of his meager chakra, and puts his head between his knees.

They’re all so terribly young and alive. This is the cruelest illusion anyone could offer him. Yet even despite the pain it brings him, he knows he doesn’t deserve to see it. Obito doesn’t deserve to walk up and see their smiling faces as though the past decade and a half hadn’t happened, as though he hadn’t let a madman turn him into a weapon against the entire world. They would kill him themselves if they knew, a fact he realized far too late.

But—

But if the lie is there. If he’s failed despite coming to his senses. If he can’t escape the Infinite Tsukuyomi.

_Can’t you indulge? Can’t you pretend again?_ a traitorous voice in his heart whispers.

It would be so easy. He acted the fool as Tobi for years. He could do it again, to see them alive and well. Uncorrupted. Unbroken. Obito can pretend to save them, if a pretense is all that is left for him and everyone.

What’s the harm if he’s already failed and the world is already dying?

Obito makes up his mind then. He doesn’t deserve it after what he’s done, but he is a selfish man, and he’ll take whatever has been given him.

He breathes deeply, bracing himself against the immense chakra drain, and steps back through to view the beautiful lie. It’s still there, a perfect simulacrum of his halcyon days.

He's weak.

Obito leaps out of the tree and goes to join his team.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, uh. My Day 6 fic been shelved in favor of this one. ITF is an older idea and gets precedence over Forest ~~because ITF is already mostly outlined~~.
> 
> Consider leaving a comment if you enjoyed ;)
> 
> Next chapter will be posted after the KakaObi Week challenge finishes!


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